Heitor Villa-Lobos

~ Doze Estudos para Violão

edited by C. Nelson

The Guitar Studies of Heitor Villa-Lobos

These twelve studies are copied from Editions Max Eschig M.E. 9333 © 1953. By virtue of their

being copyrighted and also easily available from the publishers there seems little point in creating a new edition such as this. The reason that I did so, however, is that the Eschig editions, which probably came more or less directly from the hand of Villa-Lobos himself, contain almost no fingering indications. The material, while not particularly difficult, does range all over the guitar fingerboard in such a way as to make it very challenging to play on sight. The best fingering is not always obvious in these pieces. Even if one makes the considerable effort required to work it out, the result is likely to be a very messy copy of one’s music.

The fingering I have added is that which I feel to be useful to a broad range of guitarists, leaving out

only very natural or not particularly important usage for the left hand and providing at least some indication of that for the right hand.

An additional factor which led me to copy these studies is that of certain conventions followed in the

original editions. One of these is the very frequent appearance of unnecessary sharps, flats and naturals. This can be disorienting. The usage of “courtesy” accidentals is unnecessary if one follows the usual rules of key signature and employment of accidentals. Where courtesy accidentals do appear warranted, they may best be enclosed in parentheses to eliminate possible confusion. I have removed redundant accidentals except in a very few cases and have parenthesized the exceptions.

Another convention, sufficiently confusing to cause comment on it to appear in both introductions and

appendices to the Eschig editions, is that of the notation of harmonics. Rather than propagate this non-standard and occasional inconsistent notation I have replaced it with notation I feel to be most literally accurate. The tone actually to be produced is shown. That it is a harmonic is indicated by a diamond shaped note head along with the fret position at which the string should be damped and whatever other fingering indications might seem appropriate.

More a lack of convention in the source edition is that of inconsistent usage of repeats. There are

several cases in these studies where one or many measures of music are re-printed when this could have been avoided by application of standard repeat notation. Such repeat notation is used in many cases in the originals but consistent application saved a few pages and clarified the form of several of these studies.

A final factor, which seems not a major one in these editions, is that of simple errors in notation or

printing. There are not many, but there appear to be a few. Correcting probable “errors” can be a dicey business. In some cases I have made changes and in others I have not. Among the possibilities I did not change are in measures 19 of #1; 47 of #4; 54 of #8; 34 of #11. Among those I did are in measures 63 of #4; 54, 55 and 56 of #7; 39 of #8; 17, 20 and the next to the last of #12.

I have propagated all articulations, dynamic expressions and other comments more or less exactly as

they appear in the source edition. In a few cases I have added my own comments, mostly for repeat instructions and clarification of fingering. I chose to add these in Portuguese mostly on a whim, to add seasoning to the mix of French and Italian already in use in the source, but partly in tribute to the native tongue of the composer.

- C. Nelson Santa Ynez Valley

Preliminary edition – August, 2000

CONTENTS

Étude No 1 (des arpéges) 1 Étude No 2 (des arpéges) 3 Étude No 3 (allegro moderato) 5 Étude No 4 (des accords répétés) 7 Étude No 5 (andantino) 10 Étude No 6 (poco allegro) 13 Étude No 7 (très animé) 15 Étude No 8 (modéré) 18 Étude No 9 (très peu animé) 20 Étude No 10 (très animé) 23 Étude No 11 (lent) 27 Étude No 12 (animé) 32